About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherHarvard University Press

ISBN-100674008863

ISBN-139780674008861

eBay Product ID (ePID)2306190

Product Key Features

Number of Pages208 Pages

Publication NameAppropriately Subversive : Modern Mothers in Traditional Religions

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2003

SubjectChristian Life / General, Parenting / General, Christianity / Catholic, General, Parenting / Motherhood, Women's Studies, Sexuality & Gender Studies

TypeTextbook

Subject AreaFamily & Relationships, Religion, Social Science, Psychology

AuthorTova Hartman Halbertal

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.1 in

Item Weight20 Oz

Item Length0.9 in

Item Width0.6 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2002-068811

Dewey Edition21

ReviewsThe devout women in Tova Hartman Halbertal's new book are all insiders. Unhappy insiders sometimes, uncomfortable insiders often, but inside to stay. The author understands...Those [Halbertal] interviews wrestle to change their religious cultures even as they stand grounded in faith...All are mothers of adolescent daughters and all are teachers, usually in the religious schools of their communities. They know, writes Ms. Hartman Halbertal, both the price of choosing not to socialize their daughters in their traditions and the cost of passing on the culture without reflection...For mothers challenging the status quo, raising "good girls," can be both a way of protecting daughters and an insurance policy, she argues. "Good daughters certify good mothers," allowing the latter further risk-taking., Appropriately Subversive offers wonderful insights from the stories of mothers who live within and value traditional religious beliefs, yet question the price of conformity, exploring how the tension between "the committed self" and "the resisting self" affects their choices in raising their daughters. In Hartman Halbertal's interviews with orthodox Jewish and Catholic women, we see vastly different religious practices, but remarkably similar psychic dramas. Her research helps us to understand the insidious effect of authoritarian structures that short-circuit the free exchange of ideas and prevent daughters and mothers from really knowing one another., This is a study of women on the boundaries between ambiguity and conviction; tradition and change; law and life; self-expression and silence. But it is more. By crossing boundaries herself between dispassionate scholarship and compassion; Jews and Catholics; mothers and daughters--Tova Hartman Halbertal creates an opening into hope, the true holy place., This small gem of a book opens a new conversation about mothers. Illuminating the inner voices of women raising daughters in the orthodoxies of Judaism and Catholicism, it reminds us that all mothers mother in orthodoxy. Rarely have I seen the intelligence of mothers so respected or their conflicts portrayed with such eye-opening honesty. AppropriatelySubversive is bold and innovative research. Tova Hartman Halbertal has placedher study at a critical intersection of traditional religions and modern feminism. Honoring the claims of both, she invites us into the dilemmas of mothering in culture. Hers is the voice of a brilliant new scholar.

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal200/.85/2

Table Of Content1. "I Think I'm of Two Minds" 2. Ritual Observance and Religious Learning 3. Abdications and Coalitions 4. Teaching 5. The Conflict of Dgmas 6. "No Perfect Places" Notes Refrences Index

SynopsisHow do mothers reconcile conflicting loyalties--to their religious traditions, and to the daughters whose freedoms are also constrained by those traditions? Searching for answers, Halbertal interviewed mothers of teenage daughters in religious communities: Catholics in the United States and Orthodox Jews in Israel., How do mothers reconcile conflicting loyalties--to their religious traditions, and to the daughters whose freedoms are also constrained by those traditions? Searching for answers, Tova Hartman Halbertal interviewed mothers of teenage daughters in religious communities: Catholics in the United States, Orthodox Jews in Israel. Sounding surprisingly alike, both groups described conscious struggles between their loyalties and talked about their attempts to make sense of and pass on their multiple commitments. They described accommodations and rationalizations and efforts to make small changes where they felt that their faith unjustly subordinated women. But often they did not feel they could tell their daughters how troubled they were. To keep their daughters safe within the protective culture of their ancestors, the mothers had to hide much of themselves in the hope that their daughters would know them more completely in the future. Moving and unique, this book illuminates one of the moral questions of our time--how best to protect children and preserve community, without being imprisoned by tradition.

LC Classification NumberBL458.H37 2002